TITLE: Iron Maiden - Prologue
DISCLAIMER: The Marvel Cinematic Universe characters and everything from Earth-199999 belongs to Marvel under the umbrella of The Mouse of Doom, ahem, sorry, Disney... anything from other Marvel Universes / dimensions / timelines belong to their respective comic creators… basically, if you recognise it, it isn't mine... Please don't sic SHIELD on me, I'm just here for the fun.
This is a fic idea that's been bugging me for a few years now, so I decided to finally get it down on paper and use it to get back into writing and beat the block that I've been suffering with on Double Back... I will get back to that soon, but this is somewhere where I can actually push the boundaries a bit and explore wider ramifications than just a single country / battle.
AN: This series is inspired by the amazing fics "The War is Far From Over Now" by Dont_call_me_Carrie, and "Tony's Girl" by Crosshairs... both are truly epic reads and I highly recommend anyone reads them :D
Obviously this will be a 'Team Tony' / 'Team Iron Man' series... well, Team Stark really... and will NOT be friendly to Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff, or SHIELD, though they will only play minor roles as the series progresses... if you don't like it, don't read it... comments from Team Cap trolls will be laughed at, mocked, then deleted. Flames will be used to toast marshmallows, and enjoyed as gooey goodness.
Prologue
"The Scarlet Witch is not born; she is forged. She has no coven or need for incantation. Her power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is her destiny to destroy the world."
Stark International: Research and Development Compound
Stark Private Lab
Outside of Madrid
Spain
November 17th, 2043
It wasn't so much apathy, but more disgust and annoyance that she felt as she stared over at the holographic projection of the globe being displayed in front of her. The dozens of glowing red spots, an exponential increase over last year, highlighted along with various other screens showing all the scientific data that had been collected on the 'red rifts' as the media was calling the phenomenon.
Some were as big as large towns, cities even. Great swaths of land engulfed in swirling red energy that might as well be a vacuum or the deepest trenches of the ocean for all the world knew. All they did know was that anything inside the scarlet energy was lost, forever. Nothing that went in ever came out again. Some scientists and militaries had even tested firing weapons into them, guns, missile, lasers through thin areas, nothing ever came out, nothing passed through, they were simply voids, null existence gaps in reality, absences of everything or the areas they had engulfed had been swallowed whole and moved somewhere else.
The general consensus was that the effect was similar enough to a black hole but without the gravitational pull, but the prevailing theory amongst scientists who knew the cause of the phenomenon was that they were tears in the fabric of reality, some leading to other realities, others leading to dead realities, others still leading to some sort of gap or null existence between their reality and somewhere else.
Either way the end result was the same, the scarlet tears in reality were multiplying at a rate that would see them cover entire countries soon enough, and before then there wouldn't be anywhere safe on the Earth to hide.
Morgan H Stark was a resident of a dying world, it didn't take a genius to understand the readings and increase of the dimensional tears, even a high school drop out could look at the numbers and the sheer size of the 'red rifts' over the past five years and figure out how bad it was getting.
Right now it was bad, and by next year would be catastrophic. The end of next year? Apocalyptic.
The best minds around the world, scientific, magical, extra terrestrial, everyone that had any real stake in the planet Earth were doing their best to find a way to contain or close the dimensional tears, but so far nothing had helped.
The first one was recorded a few years ago in thirty seven, she hadn't known about it at the time because she'd been in Switzerland studying for her second PhD, but news about the problem in Missouri even reached Europe in time, especially when the so called 'Sorcerer Supreme' hadn't managed to close it, and had actually vanished inside the glowing red tear in reality.
That was the last time anyone had ever seen Doctor Stephen Strange. Most theories were that he was dead, lost between dimensions, or long shot bets were that he'd ended up in some different reality without a way to return.
Either way, it wasn't good. Nothing that went into the 'red rifts' came back, no scientific data from probes or cameras, nothing. Anything that got caught in one, or even grazed up against the ribbons of crimson energy that swept chaotically around them was gone, wiped from existence as far as anyone could tell.
Around the world countries had cordoned them off, evacuating towns and sometimes entire cities where large 'rifts' emerged.
Refugees were set up in camps, until the crisis had been resolved according to various governments, but anyone with an IQ over double figures knew that that wasn't going to be the case.
There wasn't any fixing this, no repairing the problem or undoing the damage. It was a world wide crisis beyond anything in history, and right now she didn't know if there would even be a next year for Earth if the 'red rifts' kept growing at the rate they were currently appearing at.
"Boss, you have a visitor waiting at the gate."
Morgan's eyebrow's quirked up at FAITH's announcement from where she was still flicking her eyes over some of the latest footage from the New York rift that covered sixteen whole city blocks now. "Not interested." She dismissed the interruption, not even bothering to care who it was that had come to see her.
She knew FAITH would pass on the message, probably more politely than she would have, but the result would be the same really.
She didn't need any interruptions right now, not with this going on, and there wasn't really anyone left that she would really want to see anyway. If it was Uncle Eightball, he would have been allowed through automatically, the fact the visitor had been stopped outside the gates told her they didn't have a pass to get in, and wasn't chipped to allow entry passed the security around the SI Compound.
"Boss, the visitor is insistent. He claims to have information about the current problems." FAITH's voice came back again.
"Who is it?" Morgan rolled her eyes, knowing full well that anyone that had any real insight into the problem would already be working on it, and anyone with the brainpower or tech to actually contribute anything meaningful would have called her rather than simply turning up.
"Clint Barton." FAITH reported, bringing up the security footage from the gate to show the silver haired man waiting there, standing by the compound main gate in front of what looked to be a rather low budget rental car.
That caught her attention, and Morgan's eyes flicked up angrily to the holographic screen displaying the security footage. "What's he doing here?" She spat in disgust. "I thought all the assholes still had arrest warrants out for them in Europe?"
"Apparently it's been so long that people have forgotten what Mr Barton looks like boss," FAITH reported, flickering in alongside the holographic displays to appear in her soft light form that coalesced into the shape of a young monochrome purple woman. "It is also equally possible that nobody really cares about a man who's only real skill is cosplaying a knock off Robin Hood?" The AI smirked. "Shall I inform security there is another... visitor, for them to come and deal with?"
Morgan snorted at that, shaking her head in amusement as she reached out and manipulated the display of the security feed for a moment before connecting through to the speakers and microphone by the gate. "Is this like some ex-Avengers suicide pact? I've already sent SWORD packing a couple of times now, so you're going to need three damn good reasons why I shouldn't direct this call straight through to Interpol right now and have security knock you out until they get here." She said, causing Clint to startle where he was still leaning up against the main gate.
"Morgan Stark?" He asked, looking around as if he was trying to find the cameras and speakers hidden into the compound gate.
"Clint Barton," Morgan shot back in the same tone of voice. "So, now that we know we know each other's names, I'm going to give you to the count of five to say something staggeringly interesting before I pull Interpol in on this little chat and send security over to deal with you." She said with a dismissive wave, not really bothered about Barton one bit.
"The Witch is dead."
Morgan actually froze at those words, giving the video feed her full attention now. "Say that again?" She demanded.
"The news haven't got wind of it yet, but it happened yesterday down outside of St Louis. Long range sniper. I've still got some friends inside SHIELD... SWORD I mean, who confirmed it for me." Clint explained. "Report says he took her down from a nine hundred meter shot, single high velocity round that turned her head into paste."
"And you believe SWORD?" Morgan snorted in disgust.
"I believe this. It was Frank Castle who pulled the trigger, not anyone from SWORD." Clint said calmly. "As far as anyone knows, it wasn't sanctioned by any of the alphabet agencies either." He explained. "SWORD's got Cap... Wilson and the other Avengers hunting for Castle now, they'll probably find him sooner than later." He said. "I'm not an expert on much, but marksmanship? That's my workhouse. I saw the photos, it was real, a clean shot too."
"Alright, you've got my attention." Morgan nodded. "Why tell me?"
"I know I'm not a Stark, but you'd have to be record levels of stupid not to see what's going on." Clint chuckled drily at his words. "It's as bad as I think?"
"Probably worse," Morgan admitted with a small shrug, even though she knew that the man couldn't see her.
"Figures," Clint sighed, leaning back against his car and practically sitting on the hood. "The entire world's had Maximoff on the top of their most wanted list for years now, I even had some people try and talk me into taking the contract. I don't know how Castle found her, but word is the bounty on her head was in nine digits."
"Wasn't me if that's what you're asking, but I'll toast a glass of coke to whoever Frank Castle is for emptying her brains all over a wall." Morgan said, happy that the Scarlet Bitch was dead, but it didn't really change things for the rest of the world.
"Didn't think it was," Clint shook his head. "One question, just answer me this then you can call whoever you want, I deserve it."
Morgan actually raised an eyebrow at that, leaning back in her chair and staring at the security feed. "Alright, you've got me curious. What?" She asked.
"Is there a way out of this? To fix this?" Clint asked. "You're a Stark, even smarter than your dad was according to everyone I know. I want to know exactly what the chances are."
"Why do you care?" Morgan asked curiously. "I remember mom telling me all about the parades and documentaries about The Avengers. I've seen the security footage from the old Stark Tower and the compound. The news reports after dad's death. Nobody bothered to mourn him, he saved the universe and you all just turned him into another villain while putting up statues of Rogers." She snorted in disgust. "Mom couldn't even look at the Statue of Liberty after that pile of shit of a shield was stuck to it."
"I know," Clint sighed loudly. "I didn't speak to Pepper after... after your dad's funeral, before she moved the company out of America, but I heard from enough people who know better than me to figure out what was behind it." He said softly.
"So? Why do you give shit now? Why come to me?" Morgan demanded.
"Because I want to know if this is going to help." Clint said simply, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and sliding out a small glowing red vial.
Morgan immediately sat up, her intent focus zooming in on the vial being displayed quite prominently by Clint for the security cameras to zoom in on. "How the fuck do you have Pym particles?" She demanded, needing confirmation before saying anything else. "Pym died like decades ago, and nobody else has ever been able to recreate his pseudo-fringe-science shrinking crap?"
Clint simply nodded, cradling the precious vial in his hands. "You know about the... you know, before Tony..."
"The time travel fuck up to end all fuck ups?" Morgan snorted, cutting off Clint's question. "Yeah, then Crap: The Wanking Flag vanished with the last of the particles. Said he was taking the stones back, don't know why any of you actually bought that shit, but he stayed in the past like a bitch to get away from a hundred and sixty two countries labelling him an international terrorist. He just ran away like the coward he was to create his own timeline in the past where he got the girl and lived happily ever after, and left everyone else to deal with the giant pile of shit he'd dumped on the world rather than actually face up to the consequences of him becoming a villain." She scowled. "Yes. I know about all of that. I saw Wilson's report about what happened."
"Right," Clint sighed, rubbing his temples with his free hand. "It was Natasha's vial, the one to get her back to the future or whatever the right words for it are." He explained with a shrug. "She died on Voramir and never came back. I saved it and her suit, I couldn't bring her body back, but I figured it'd be better if I didn't leave stuff like that lying around on an alien planet." He explained. "After... you know, it was just in my bag and I never figured out who I should give it back to."
"Shit..." Morgan breathed out, slumping back in her chair from where she'd been staring intently at the vial in Clint's possession.
"I've fucked up a lot of things in my life kid, too many mistakes." Clint explained with a frown. "Nat always used to say she was trying to clean out the red from her ledger, I know I've only added to mine after everything I've done."
Morgan didn't know what to say to that, she just stared and watched as Clint looked around for the camera's, looking like a man standing in confessional.
"Can you use it? Go back, stop Wanda before she screws everything up?" Clint asked aloud.
"Probably," Morgan mused, leaning forward and staring into the security feed. "You know it won't change anything right? Time travel doesn't work like that. Wacky Wanda broke the universe when she went crazy, going back in time won't change that, it'll just create another time line where we stop her first."
"Yeah, that's what Stark... your dad and Banner said, I know I'm not smart enough to understand any of that sort of stuff." Clint admitted. "But there'll be a world out there alive because you stopped her, stopped all of this shit from ever happening?" He asked. "My kids... my grandkids, they'll have a world that isn't about to be wiped out because I fucked up?
"Well... yeah," Morgan nodded to herself as she thought about it. It was a simplistic way of explaining it, but it wasn't exactly wrong. "You know most of the scientists in the know about everything that happened, they think she only managed to break reality so badly because the Infinity Stones aren't part of the universe anymore to keep things stable."
"I hate those damn things," Clint groused, reaching up and ruffling his cropped grey hair. "So just stopping Wanda, it's like a band aid over the problem?"
"Something like that," Morgan said with a small shrug. "Maybe it's worse on other planets, I haven't got a clue. Nobody on Earth knows how big the problem actually is." She explained with a glance over to the holographic screens she had up that detailed the spread of the 'red rifts' on Earth.
"What about before everything happened with the stones, fix everything, put a bullet in Thanos as soon as he steps foot on the planet?" Clint asked. "Have someone make a special vibranium bullet just to empty his big purple head all over the ground."
"You mean back to when you guys were jumping around in time as well?" Morgan snorted. "Yeah, because that's going to be a whole big ass mess."
"Before then," Clint said firmly. "Like, two thousand ten, something like that. Before the first invasion."
"You're serious?" Morgan asked, looking at the security stream in amusement. "Even if you went back to before the New York invasion, you couldn't do anything. SHIELD wouldn't trust you, not that they'd do anything. And giving them a heads-up on the future... well, half of them's HYDRA anyway, so you can guess how fucked up that would make things." She snorted. "HYDRA learning about time travel, because that's not a recipe for a shit storm of epic proportions that would make Rogers' fuckups look like a school yard fight."
"Not a chance," Clint huffed with a roll of his eyes. "Knackered hips and torn ligaments, I wouldn't even last the trip back there, I remember how messed up that stuff is... I wouldn't get through it again, let alone be any help." He said with a self deprecating wave of his hand. "I meant you take it and go back there."
Morgan breathed in deeply as that idea struck her, causing her to sink back in to her chair with wide eyes at the very idea of travelling back to twenty ten.
"Best thing I can think of. Give me a chance to make amends, God knows I fucking need to, somehow." Clint continued on, oblivious to how Morgan was staring at the feed without really seeing it, her brain racing a million miles an hour as she calculated exactly what it would be like to actually meet her dad properly, spend time with him, hear his voice for real and not just live with the photos and video footage of a man she'd been compared to her entire life.
She'd be able to save him. Save her dad's life. Save her mom's life. Save everyone.
"Between you and Tony, I figure you'd both be able to kick Thanos in the nuts properly, and stop Wanda from fucking everything up." Clint explained. "If you got the stone from Loki's staff first then Wanda wouldn't even have any powers to do anything with."
That... was a fair point. Stop the stone from getting into HYDRA's hands, and the Scarlet Bitch wouldn't exist at all. No Wacky Wanda, no reality breaking 'searching for her never have existed children' bullshit, none of it.
Hell, if she stopped HYDRA from getting the stone, there wouldn't be any Ultron either. So no Sokovia problems, nothing. Just changing that one rather significant detail of history would have dramatic implications for decades afterwards.
"It's only one vial," Clint sighed. "But I don't see there's much here to come back for. The worlds ending right? There's no stopping it this time?"
"Yeah," Morgan breathed out, feeling that she should at least confirm his suspicions.
"I figured," Clint groaned as he leaned on his car. "You know if Rogers was here, he's still be going on about how she's just a kid who made a mistake." He shook his head with a frown. "I've fucked up a lot in my life kid, made the wrong choices, trusted the wrong people. It's a real fucking kick in the teeth to look back on your life and realise that all the choices you made, everything you've done, all of it actually made the end of the world happen." He grimaced, exhaling with a long breath of air.
Morgan simply stared back at the holographic screen, drumming her fingers on the workbench before she made a decision. "FAITH, let him through. Direct him over to me." She said after taking a deep breath.
"Sure thing boss," FAITH said before her purple avatar flickered out of existence from where she'd been watching Morgan interacting with the security display.
Morgan didn't say anything else, she just watched as Clint startled when the gate opened, a surprised look on his face before he got back into the car and waited for the gate to open fully and let him through.
Once he started driving in Morgan simply swiped away the holograph, pulling up some of her personal files before opening one special one, staring at the photo of her mom and dad on their wedding day, a small but noticeable bump showing through her mom's wedding dress, quite literally the first ever photo she had of herself and her parents.
"FAITH, put together a timeline from twenty ten to now. Go through everything, public, my dad's records, company records, the SHIELD files dad kept, mom's old stuff, everything. I want to know everything." Morgan said as she stood up.
If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. One vial of precious Pym Particles meant no do overs or trying again, she'd have to be absolutely certain of every single move that she made.
Already plotting things out in her mind she walked out of the lab, heading up to the ground floor to actually speak with Clint Barton, one of her dad's old frenemies from everything her mom had told her about, and the video footage from Stark Building and the Avengers Compound seemed to back that up.
So why the change of heart? Why come to her now? A guilty conscience after all the shit he pulled with the rest of Crap's sycophants? Or did he just not want to face the end of the world knowing that he'd played a damn significant part in making sure that everything went to shit?
It didn't really matter in the end she supposed, he could assuage his guilty conscience all he wanted, it wouldn't change what he'd done and what he'd allowed to happen.
She'd never really believed in heaven or hell, but maybe the thought of everyone getting their just deserts after treating her family... her dad... like the villain and glorifying an international terrorist... maybe the idea was like karma coming down on the world in some strange way.
Ten minutes later she was rather bemusedly sat on the hood of Clint's car next to him, holding a precious vial of Pym Particles in her hand and some really ancient nanite tech in her other.
"I kept up with the news you know, even after everything that happened." Clint said, mostly speaking aloud and to himself as Morgan was still staring down at the vial of Pym Particles and her mind was rushing over hundreds of different plans and contingencies. "The news hated your mom after she took the company out of America, it wasn't as bad as some of them going after that Spider-Man guy, but it was pretty bad."
"I know," Morgan nodded absently, she'd been too young to remember it really, but once something was on the internet it was there forever, and she had seen every single news article, interview and made specific records of which companies had caused the most problems for her mom in those years, and made sure that Stark International never had any dealings with them, and it some cased literally buried them by making favourable deals with their competitors.
"I remember they were trying to bring your mom up on treason charges, once the company dropped out of America, unemployment went through the roof. It was crazy, I didn't realise how big Stark's company was until everything was gone." Clint explained with a sigh. "Medical, energy, phones, tablets, TV's, computers... the stuff now? Cybernetics, arm replacements, all that? We never had anything like that back then. Wakanda could do some of it, but not like the stuff I've seen in hospitals today."
"I designed most of it," Morgan said, waving the thought off. "Twenty ten, that's before the New York invasion right?" She double checked.
She knew most of her dad's history, and all the stuff around him and The Avengers were taught in school history classes now, so she was pretty certain that she had the years right, but it always helped to double check, knowing full well how history could get distorted and covered with lies and political bullshit.
"Yeah, that was twenty twelve," Clint nodded. "That's when Fury first put The Avengers together."
"Right," Morgan nodded, FAITH would have an accurate timeline ready for her by now anyway. "You know there won't be an Avengers team if I do this right?" She asked. "I mean, not that there's much point to them anyway."
"Figured as much," Clint nodded in agreement. "You and Stark could probably handle most things. Saw your suit on the news, leaves Stark's old red and gold ones in the dust." He said with a small grin. "You still going by Iron Maiden?"
"Never called myself that," Morgan shook her head. "The news ran it first, then it was just everywhere... then the band's legal team came out and said they loved me using the name... so I never bothered thinking up anything else."
Clint snorted at that, shaking his head in amusement. "Not worth arguing with the media, more headaches than anything." He chuckled to himself. "Anyway, if you take Loki's staff during the invasion, that takes care of pretty much all of the Avengers missions anyway. Aside from SHIELD and HYDRA's crap, the Avengers didn't do anything else until we all broke up, and then Thanos..."
"So, not worth it at all." Morgan said simply with a small shrug. "Kill Thanos early, stop HYDRA getting Loki's staff, and that's it."
It was a fair point as far as she remembered. The Avengers as a group only really existed from twenty twelve to twenty sixteen. Four years, and in that time pretty much all of their missions were dealing with the fallout from the New York invasion, and the Infinity Stone in Loki's staff thing.
Take the staff out of the picture, that meant no Ultron or Sokovia or any of it. That was the rest of the Avengers missions together, stopping them before they happened removed all need for the Avengers to ever exist really. That meant more time to focus on Thanos when he made his first appearance, and get ready for his invasion.
"Save the world," Clint nodded. "Sounds simple when you put it like that. Two changes and you stop the universe from being destroyed." He chuckled at the thought. "Know I don't deserve this, but since you're going to be changing history... get me and Nat away from SHIELD will you?" He asked, looking over to her hopefully.
"Why?" Morgan tilted her head as she considered the request. "I've seen the building footage of you two, how you treated my dad. Why do you care about getting away from SHIELD?"
"Because it was SHIELD that ordered us to treat Stark like that," Clint explained. "Fury's idea, keep Stark off guard with dissension in the team, stop him from taking over completely. Coulson never liked Stark anyway, rumour says he actually threatened to taze him once when he still had that thing in his chest. I know I'm not that sharpest arrow in the set, but even I can figure out what'd happened to an electromagnet if you stuck a tazer on it."
Morgan grimaced at the thought, knowing full well that would have killed her dad pretty quickly, even if the arc reactor held out, everyone knew her dad had had a weak heart due to the shrapnel and constant operations to keep him alive.
"Fury wanted Stark off balance, looking over his shoulder, not focusing on them or the threat they were." Clint explained before grimacing. "Nat told me the whole info dump thing, that was on Fury's go-ahead too. People were starting to look too closely at SHIELD, at Fury really. So he cottoned on to blaming everything on HYDRA and burning the entire thing so he could slip away. That's why me and Nat never went back to SHIELD after Fury came back, and then the whole SWORD thing... It was all their idea, keeping Stark busy dealing with the team bullshit instead of looking at them."
"HYDRA or SHIELD?" Morgan asked before shrugging. "Same thing anyway, so it doesn't really matter."
"That's true enough," Clint nodded. "It was probably HYDRA who pushed the idea first, not wanting Stark looking too closely at their systems or figuring out what they were doing. Me and Nat didn't know at the time, and by the time HYDRA had come out of the woodwork..."
"Dad already hated you two for the years of bullshit and assholery," Morgan said simply.
"Like I said, I fucked up more than once, didn't think about it at the time, it was just how SHIELD was." Clint sighed. "Figured it out later on, the way I figure it is that nobody saw HYDRA in SHIELD because SHIELD was so full of dodgy shit that HYDRA could do whatever they wanted and it still just looked like business as usual to anyone anyway."
"I heard," Morgan sighed, knowing full well that most of Europe had pulled out of the SHIELD charter when they'd been trying to rebuild. Nobody trusted SWORD or any of their agents anymore, and it was a strictly American Agency now that the rest of the world treated with the contempt it deserved.
"You want to take Thanos out from a distance, sniper rifle, laser canon, something like that. Nat's going to be your best shot, her or Barnes really, but don't see you going to him for help." Clint explained. "Give Nat a decent weapon, let her take the shot, it'll solve the problem right there before he even gets a chance to collect any more of the damn stones."
Morgan nodded automatically, factoring things into her plans. A properly calibrated Stark Rail Rifle like the three mounted on Uncle Eightball's War Machine armour would definitely do the trick. Add in a hardened vibranium bullet, fifty calibre or something similar, aim it right and it'd be travelling at about eight kilometres a second. More than enough to turn Thanos into a fine purple paste before he even heard the shot.
"Nat got dicked over as well, not as bad as Stark, well, maybe worse." Clint sighed. "People still know Stark died saving the world, America might be trying to rewrite the history books and claim Rogers did it all, but there were enough people there to know that it was Stark all the way." He explained. "Nat doesn't even get that. Fury wiped her records completely. She died getting the soul stone so that we could bring everyone back, and nobody even knows her name. She died and Fury just shrugged and deleted her file like she was nothing to him." He spat out. "Cap got statues, monuments and everything. Stark got turned into a villain, and Nat just got forgotten and wiped from history. Fury turned it all to shit just to protect his golden boy and keep the legend alive."
"Mom never really spoke about the other Avengers. She mentioned Banner a few times and The Hulk, but nobody else." Morgan said with a shake of her head.
"It all went to shit anyway." Clint sighed. "I got divorced, I can't even see my kids anymore. I know I've got grandkids out there now. I've never even met them, only seen a couple of photos." He said, idly stroking a gold wedding band on his ring finger. "She hit the roof when all the videos came out about what Rogers did to your dad in Russia, everything about Barnes, then all the videos about Wanda and everything she did." He explained, dragging his hand down his face. "I screwed up, made the shittiest choices. Everyone but your dad did really, we all fucked up and he was the only bastard smart enough to see it."
"What about the others?" Morgan asked, glancing over to Clint. She hadn't really been old enough to understand what was happening when her mom and Uncle Eightball released all the Avengers files and security footage to the world, but she knew it was bad from the amount of interviews and media coverage it got, and the amount of outrage on the news. "Get you and Black Widow out of SHIELD, what about everyone else?"
"The other Avengers?" Clint shrugged. "Figure you'll be helping your dad out anyway, so that's that. Banner never wanted to be part of anything in the first place. If you protected him from the army hunting him down, he'd be an asset, but aside from that..." He trailed off awkwardly. "I haven't spoken to Thor in years. Heard he left Earth and flew off somewhere. I know the other Asgardians are still here, but I haven't heard anything about him coming back in the news or anything, and Thor's not exactly subtle about anything or known for sneaking around."
Morgan nodded along at that, she hadn't heard anything about Thor or any of the other Asgardian's either. They mostly kept to themselves, and aside from the tourism and curiosity around them being aliens and all that, but that had died down pretty quickly when they weren't willing to share technology or help defend the planet or anything, so they ended up being pretty much ostracised by the rest of the world and treated like the freeloaders they were, there wasn't really much else to say about the Asgardian survivors.
The only other country that was treated the same was Wakanda, but they'd gone back into hiding after everything that happened, with the world looking at them in disgust for hiding away and keeping all their technological advances to themselves. After the world knew that Wakanda had hidden and shielded international terrorists from justice, it got worse and they simply closed their borders again and vanished back into obscurity.
Not that it really mattered, with the existence of synthetic vibranium and all the alien tech that was discovered and re-engineered from the battlefield where her dad died, Thanos' mothership and everything else, Wakanda was quickly being outpaced by the technology of the world. Their 'real vibranium' didn't mean much anymore, and synthetic vibranium was the corner stone of technological advancements around the world, equalising everyone else with Wakanda's bullshit and secrecy.
They'd kicked up a fuss over it originally of course. Trying to bluster that vibranium was their birthright and only Wakanda had the rights to use 'the metal of the gods.' They were very easily ignored by the world at large though, and nobody took their religious ranting seriously. After everything that happened and how every other country knew the truth about Wakanda now anyway, they didn't have any real diplomatic currency to spend on the world stage anymore. So when they were ignored, they simply retreated back to their borders and had very rarely been heard from since.
She saw videos and interviews now and again with Queen Shuri trying to make peace and talk with neighbouring countries around Africa, but none of them wanted anything to do with Wakanda now. Not after they'd been in hiding for centuries and kept their technology and wealth to themselves, allowing other neighbouring countries to wallow in stricken poverty, with diseases and war torn cities crumbling around them.
"Thor only got involved because of Loki, and then Thanos. He didn't exactly stick around for anything aside from hooking up with some doctor or scientist type from what I heard." Clint shrugged. "Let him take Loki back to Asgard, if you kill Thanos early, chances are you won't see Thor again anyway."
"Good point," Morgan sighed. "That just leaves..."
"Rogers," Clint sighed and nodded. "You know, I saw Stark's armour, up close I mean. Every mission, every time I'd see him in his workshops. It wasn't hard to see how he learnt from every fight we got into, and made sure his armour could counter that problem next time."
Morgan simply nodded, having been over her father's old Iron Man designs so many times growing up. She knew the evolution of the Iron Man armour better than anyone other than Tony Stark himself, and then she'd evolved her own armour from his Mark Eighty Five starting point, mixed with his designs for her mom's armour, and the Iron Maiden armour had simple grown from there over the past seven years.
"He had a counter for Rogers didn't he?" Clint asked. "Probably Barnes too. After he fought them both in Russia, they might have won that time, but I'd bet everything I've got left that Stark learnt everything from that fight, and his next armour had specific counters designed especially to take Rogers and Barnes down if it came to it again." He said, clearly thinking back to those days. "Rogers... he wasn't an idiot you know. He'd known as well, that's why we spent those years hiding out in Wakanda. He knew he couldn't face your dad again, he wouldn't be able to win again."
"Point to you," Morgan smirked at him. "Yeah, he spent years going over scans of Rogers' shield and Barnes' arm. Probably knew more about vibranium and hydra tech than anyone else, other than the Wakandans." She explained with a dismissive wave, knowing those scans and tests her dad had done had paved the way for Stark International's advancements and the eventual discovery of synthetic vibranium. "He programmed the nanotech in every suit after to simulate vibranium blades. It couldn't hold it for long, that was only first generation nanotech, but..."
"But you mastered it," Clint nodded. "I've seen the news footage, your suit is a hundred times any of Stark's old suits. And I'd put good money on that isn't the only counter he designed for Rogers." He sighed. "I know your dad had Rogers' shield for a while, should have figured he'd be learning from it." He said with a frown. "I remember how bad Rogers looked after that fight. Stark probably had some of his blood too, Barnes too right? Everyone knows it was his dad that helped make the serum work, he worked on a counter for it, didn't he?"
That was true, but she wasn't going to give everything away. Of course her dad had worked on a counter for the super soldier serum after Rogers and Barnes had nearly killed him. He wasn't going to allow a weakness like that to continue when he could do something about it.
The threat of super soldiers still existed, and while nobody else had perfected them yet, it didn't mean they wouldn't one day. And when that day came, she had the chemical formula for the anti-serum ready and waiting.
"My tech is better than anything he had access to thirty five years ago." Morgan pointed out.
"Maybe. Give him that leg up this time around?" Clint pointed out. "You and your dad together? You won't need Rogers, or anyone else."
"Maybe," Morgan conceded. It was a fair point. If she took back all the tech and advancements from twenty forty three to twenty ten, the Iron Man tech would be a quantum leap beyond anything else on earth. Hell, if she took back everything from the Stark International servers, they could have an entire army fitted and ready to wipe out Thanos' army of creatures when they attacked.
"Stark, you, Rhodey." Clint ticked off on his fingers. "Three suits all up to your standard?" He asked raising an eyebrow. "That enough to take down Loki and Thanos?"
"Easily," Morgan nodded without hesitation. She could very easily bring the Mark Eighty Five up to modern standards, her Iron Maiden Mark Twenty Three was still based loosely on the same designs. Incorporating the latest Arc reactor and modern nanotech into the design along with all the improvements she'd made since then, and both of them would be quite literally beyond anything else on Earth in twenty ten.
"So leave Steve to do his own thing. SHIELD, probably the army if SHIELD collapse properly, either way he's not worth focusing on." Clint pointed out. "Let Fury keep his pet super soldier for Coulson to fawn over while you guys take care of the real threat."
That much was true. Rogers was enhanced with strength, speed and regeneration, but he wasn't anything special. Everything special about him was just propaganda, she'd seen his blood tests and scan results, she'd seen his fights and knew precisely how strong and how fast he was.
A hundred years ago he was the peak of enhancements, the perfect soldier and everything America needed to win the war. Today? A micro missile from her wrist could turn him into paste, or the Iron Maiden nanite armour that enhanced her strength could bludgeon him unconscious with a few well placed blows.
He was still flesh and bone, stronger and more resilient than the average human, but against some of the other enhanced that had cropped up and turned to villainy over the years, he was way down at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to categorising him as a threat.
Even his fancy vibranium shield wasn't anything special now, not since synthetic vibranium started being mass produced by Stark International. She'd incorporated it into her armour ages ago, and with all the perfections she evolved over the years, she knew without a doubt that her armour was far stronger than the rudimentary vibranium composite shield that Rogers used.
She'd seen her dad's scans and photos of that stupid shield. How Black Panther had put deep claw marks right down it, gouging right through the vibranium layers. He could do that with just biologically enhanced strength. With her nanotech enhancements in the suit and synthetic vibranium weaponry, she'd be able to do a hell of a lot more damage than that, and destroy that stupid fucking shield for good.
God that would feel good. Taking the shield that Rogers nearly killed her dad with, the shield her grandfather created. It was her family's right to destroy the damn thing after everything it had cost them.
"So planning SHIELD's collapse early? Complete collapse, destroyed for good? The other you wouldn't have a problem with that? Or Widow?" Morgan asked.
"We're adaptable," Clint shrugged. "Kid, we were spies and assassins for SHIELD. We might not have known exactly how dodgy things were, but we still killed people under Fury's orders. Hearing that things weren't as up and up as we believed? Not going to be the biggest shock out there. Why'd you think me and Nat weren't so shocked when SHIELD collapsed? Hearing it was HYDRA, yeah, that was a surprise... hearing SHIELD was keeping itself in the shadows because if it became public we'd all be lynched for Fury's shit? Not that much."
Morgan just snorted at that, accepting the point for what it was.
Burning SHIELD to the ground a few years early wouldn't change much really, making sure it was utterly destroyed and every single secret of theirs was brought into the light instead of just encrypted files floating around the internet? Doable, she'd just have to plan it for the right time so that a few things still happened on schedule.
"Alright, I'll try and convince you and Natasha what's going on." Morgan nodded, it was the least she could do since without him and the Pym Particles he'd saved, there wouldn't be any time travel anyway.
As far as she knew, her mom had destroyed the original device after the truth about what Rogers had done came out. The rest of the nanosuits used for traversing the quantum realm were gone too, so she'd have to create everything from scratch if it wasn't for him.
Helping the past version of him see through SHIELD's bullshit early on was a fair trade as far as she was concerned. Also, getting two master assassins on side before the shit hit the fan was a pretty good bonus.
"You got a camera or something?" Clint asked, looking over at her. "Back in twenty ten, there's no way I'd believe Stark, or a random stranger about time travel and all of this shit. Neither would Nat. They'd believe you that SHIELD is dodgy as hell, but about HYDRA and everything else? Not a chance." He said as he watched her reactions closely. "I'll record a message for them, tell them what's going on. No offence, but I'd rather skip the past me going up against your armour. I've seen the news reports, they'd be mopping up what's left of me with a sponge." He added with a smirk.
Morgan snorted at that, giving him a wry grin at the mental image. "Good plan," She nodded in agreement. "I've got to figure out this piece of shit anyway." She explained, holding up the gauntlet that contained Black Widow's nanosuit and quantum tunneller. "First gen nanotech, first or second. It's ancient, like steam age tech." She huffed in annoyance at the twenty year old technology in her hand.
"First, ow... you trying to make me feel every single one of my years?" Clint laughed as he slid off of the hood of his car, cringing slightly as he stretched his back and felt the muscles complain about the way he'd been sat for so long. "Second, tell that to Stark. Seriously. Film that. You calling his tech ancient and backwards? God, I would pay money to see that." He explained with a snort of laughter as Morgan slid off the hood casually and stood up herself.
"Deal," Morgan grinned at him. "Come on, I've got FAITH plotting out a timeline for things already. You can record your speech or whatever while I try and figure out all of dad's old tech and actually bring it up to scratch."
"Another robot voice thing?" Clint asked with a grimace. "You take after your dad far too much." He muttered as he followed Morgan into the building and thankfully out of the bright Spanish sun."
That's what mom always said. Too much Stark flavoured Snark and not enough of her." Morgan explained as they walked.
"I saw her funeral on TV, she was a good woman." Clint nodded.
"Yeah," Morgan nodded, accepting the words for what they were. "I'll be saving her as well. No extremis, no untested therapy to remove it. No cancer." She said firmly. She was going to save both her parents, that much she was certain of.
"Good, she deserved better." Clint said, catching Morgan's eye so she could see he was serious about it. The silent 'so did Nat' was left unsaid, but crossed Clint's face clearly enough.
Morgan nodded in agreement with that as she led the way down to the spiral staircase that led down to her private lab, completely ignoring the scans that hummed over her and Clint as they approached, causing him to look nervously around at the technology and equipment here that could probably vaporise him if he stepped out of line.
"FAITH, pull up all of dad's old files on the quantum suits and everything else related to them." Morgan said as she walked into her lab, depositing the vial of Pym Particles along with Black Widow's quantum tunneler suit bracelet onto the main workbench. "And run a scan on this, it's probably linked to one of dad's old AI's... haven't got a clue which one though."
"Um, FRIDAY?" Clint filled in, causing Morgan to look at him curiously. "I remember FRIDAY, Irish accent, sounded pretty young, always had me imagining a freckly redhead whenever she spoke." He explained.
"Pull up FRIDAY's files, sandbox her and show me the code. Lets see if we can get her up to date and ready for another time travel mission." Morgan said with a grin as the various holographic screens lit up around her workbench. "Oh, right... camera..." She nodded to herself, leaving her workbench for the time being and heading over to the side wall before picking up one of the newest SI tablets and spinning it in her fingers like an oversized pen. "Here you go." She nodded, tossing the tablet over to Clint. "There's nobody else around today, so just find somewhere quiet and record whatever you want."
"I'm crap with technology," Clint frowned, staring at the long and thin black drumstick looking device that had just been thrown at him to catch. "I haven't got a clue what this is." He admitted, the only thing he really recognised was the chrome 'Stark International' logo on it, but aside from that, it just looked like a dull black stick or big pen of some sort.
"Silver button, where your thumb is, about a third of the way down." Morgan explained, not bothering to even look back over as she headed back to her workstation, happy to see FAITH had already brought her screens up and was already showing her FRIDAY's antiquated code, and checking the base recursive algorithms of the AI code against the more advanced adaptive and creative learning quantum coding that was behind FAITH's base personality.
Clint nodded, sliding his fingers down the device until he came to the silver button, pressing it and causing a foot long holographic screen to emit from one side of the black thing. Everything on the screen looked recognisable enough, and the icon for a camera was easily visible. "Thanks kid." He nodded idly poking into the holographic display and startling when his fingers met the hard light surface that felt like impossibly smooth glass to the touch.
A quick glance up told him Morgan was already engrossed in more holographic screens than he would even know what to do with, so he simply left her to it as he wandered back to the stairs, intent on heading back outside into the fresh air and thinking through everything that he would need to tell the Clint and Nat from twenty ten.
"This is going to be a complete mess," He muttered to himself, looking at the fancy tablet like thing in his hand as he tried to consider exactly how badly two Stark's would be able to screw with the last thirty years with this level of technology. "Thanos is fucked." He concluded, nodding to himself as he walked, intent solely on just finding a nice shaded tree so he could think in peace and get this done.
January 19th, 2044
It was nearly three months later than Morgan had put together everything she needed, and rebuilt her dad's original technology from his original files. Combined with an upgraded quantum suit that had been repurposed and worked into her existing Iron Maiden nanotech, the old quantum tunneller bracelet, and the Pym Particles, she had everything ready.
She's confirmed everything Barton had told her through independent avenues, and she'd seen the actual footage of Frank Castle taking the shot and ending Wacky Wanda's life with a single high calibre sniper rifle that turned the Scarlet Bitch's head into a spray of red mist from nearly a kilometre away. Apparently Castle had recorded the entire thing as proof for his contract, and whoever it was that had paid him had released the video to the world, or it had got leaked somewhere, it didn't really matter anyway.
Maximoff's death had finally made the world news, and everyone was speculating whether the rifts would continue to grow at the same exponential rate without her, or if they would fade away and normal life would resume, or if they would always be there now.
Nearly every scientist around the world had watched a new rift appear in France merely days after Maximoff's death, so it was useless speculation as far as she was concerned, the only question was would her death actually slow down the appearances of the rifts in time to save the planet, or would they continue to keep appearing faster and faster until the entire world was swallowed up?
It didn't particularly matter to her, not now she was ready to go ahead with her plan, but academic curiosity was enough to keep her mind debating about which theory would come out on top.
Her bets were on the rifts still appearing at the same exponential rate. FAITH had plotted the growth rate of them, and in five months and three days time there wouldn't be a single piece of land on the planet not covered by the swirling scarlet energy.
If she followed the progression, in just over a year's time the entire planet would be engulfed, turning into a swirling mass of scarlet energy orbiting the sun, with no life, environment, or even any existing proof that it had ever been a planet or a civilisation at all.
Going back to the past and stopping this entire mess from ever becoming a threat in that timeline was her only option really, either that or getting as far away from Earth as possible and hoping that the rifts were contained to a single planet and weren't going to spread to the rest of reality.
Barton was dead. She hadn't seen what happened or anything, but according to the police in Madrid, it was suicide. He hadn't come back to the compound after that first visit, and only a week later FAITH had brought the news report to her attention where the police were asking for help identifying the unknown body found in a hotel room in the city.
She still didn't know how to feel about that, and had intentionally pushed it out of her mind while she'd been focusing on everything else, building her dad's old Quantum Realm accelerator, packing up all the technology and everything she could, and getting ready for her mission back in time.
Upgrading the Black Widow's old quantum suit had been a necessity. While technically she could have carried everything she needed in some sort of bag, the risk of it getting knocked out of her hand as she traversed the quantum realm wasn't something that she was willing to risk.
So much rested on this venture alone, so re-configuring the quantum suit to work in tandem with her own Iron Maiden suit, along with programming a large 'shell' type reinforced backpack for all of the gear she was taking back to twenty ten, and she felt like she was comfortably ready to actually take that giant step.
She was as prepared as she was ever going to be, and had planned for quite literally every eventuality. FAITH had run dynamic projections of history evaluating which changes she could make and what the most logical outcomes would be, so she had a fair idea of what major things she could intervene in and change things for the better.
The major thing about travelling into the past was seeing her mom again though. Actually meeting her dad properly, not just having photos and videos of him and them together when she was tiny.
Actually meeting him and getting to know him. The idea still felt strange, impossible somehow, and left her more nervous about that than saving the world from Wacky Wanda.
With a final deep breath she double tapped the nanite reactor core on her chest, smiling to herself as the liquid metal flowed out around her, eighteen generations improved over her dads original nanotech designs, literally atomic sized machines rather the micro scale ones her dad had invented and had to work with.
She double checked everything, knowing she was only going to get one shot at this. The backpack 'shell' design to cover up her heavy backpack was throwing her weight off a bit, but FAITH could compensate and it was only for the travel through the quantum realm and back to twenty ten.
Walking up to the quantum accelerator she made sure her vial of Pym Particles was in place inside the bracelet, and the confirmed the year and date, and the GPS coordinates she'd programmed in.
"Here goes," She whispered to herself, looking around her powered down lab one last time before she flicked the activation codes for the quantum generator and started the three second countdown before she walked into the middle of the machine.
Three seconds later she was gone, and the rest of the Stark Compound shut down and secured itself for the last time before the end of the world came.